Thank you for this award and for thinking of me in such a special way. I have a deep-rooted affection for this institution and feel it a privilege and an honor to have been associated with dedicated employees and so many incredible students. I shall treasure forever the experiences I had on this campus with the wonderful people who have been a part of both Ricks College and BYU–Idaho. I love this place, and I love you! Thank you for inviting us to come back.
I would like to thank my brother, Lane, and my sister, Teri, for being here with me tonight. I would also like to introduce you to my parents, Kay and Nyla Robinson. I thank my Father in Heaven daily for wonderful parents. They just celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary on March 8. When I think of what they have given me, I cannot help but recall a line from The Family: A Proclamation to the World which states: “Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.” [1]
I express love and appreciation to my parents for the sense of security and wellbeing that I have always felt in their home. As a child I always knew my parents loved each other, were faithful to each other, and honored their temple marriage covenants. They have set an example of love and fidelity in marriage for their children, their grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
I am thankful that our son, Jeffrey, could be here with us tonight. One of my favorite memories of the day my husband was called to the Twelve was the picture that was taken that day after the Saturday afternoon session of conference when Elder Bednar saw Jeff for the first time. In tears Jeff hugged and congratulated his father and then said, “Dad, this new calling is really going to mess up my dating life!”
I am thrilled to be here with my husband. Elder Bednar and I do not often get to sit by each other in meetings any more, so it is a treat to have him here at my side. I appreciate his love and support and the many ways he involved me in activities on campus during the time we were here. I feel much the same way Oliver Cowdery did when he described his involvement in the magnificent events of the restoration. He wrote, “These were days never to be forgotten.” We echo that same sentiment about our time spent here in Rexburg. An abundance of love and fond, unforgettable memories are tucked away in our hearts, never to be forgotten.
I always enjoyed Mother’s Weekend at BYU–Idaho. Watching students prepare for their mothers to come and visit was quite a sight to behold. Sheets that hadn’t been washed all semester found their way into the laundry. Cluttered apartments received HGTV Mission: Organization make-overs, and some students even managed to do minimal grocery shopping.
I once met a young woman at the grocery store the morning her mother was to arrive. I asked, “Why are you buying food before your mother comes? Don’t you know you’re supposed to wait for her to fill your cupboards with high budget food?” This young woman replied, “I just thought my mom would like something for breakfast.” I was impressed—how sensitive and thoughtful. But as I looked at the two items on the conveyor belt I thought, “My dear mother, I sure hope you like Lucky Charms and Moon Pies as part of your healthy, well-balanced, morning diet.”
The most unforgettable Mother’s Weekend fireside during our tenure here was when the speaker’s plane could not land in Idaho Falls due to snowy weather. At the last minute we had to quickly improvise a fireside program. Thankfully, I’ve had a bit more time to prepare for this fireside.
I feel blessed to be here tonight with you students and your mothers. This is a special weekend for those whose mothers have come to campus. If your mother is not here, I would love to be your mother for the evening.
You have come with expectations to be spiritually fed. I have come bearing an enormous responsibility to meet your expectations. I pray for heaven to help us tonight—that through the gift of the Holy Ghost we will communicate spirit to spirit and heart to heart.
The theme for this weekend is taken from Alma 7: “And see that ye have faith, hope, and charity, and then ye will always abound in good works.” [2]
As I have thought about this theme over the past few months, I have decided to discuss three important principles that motivate us to do good works: 1) faith to follow the teachings of living prophets; 2) hope received through temple covenants; and 3) charity towards all.
Faith to follow the teachings of living prophets
We know that faith as a principle of action is centered in our Savior, Jesus Christ. This gift moves us to act on the teachings, admonitions, and counsel of living apostles and prophets who are spokesmen for the Savior on earth.
President Spencer W. Kimball was called as the prophet when I was a single student at Brigham Young University, and he continued serving as the prophet during the years I was a young mother. I am sure that you students feel the same type of affection and regard for President Gordon B. Hinckley as the prophet of your youth as I did for President Kimball.
As I share an important teaching of President Kimball which affected the way Elder Bednar and I raised our sons, perhaps each of you here tonight can remember and reflect on counsel from the prophet of your youth that has inspired you to always abound in good works.
At an impressionable, youthful time when Elder Bednar and I were considering marriage, President Kimball gave prophetic counsel concerning missionary work that we have never forgotten. Let me share his plea with you.
"When I ask for more missionaries, I am not asking for more testimony-barren or unworthy missionaries. I am asking that we start earlier and train our missionaries better in every branch and every ward in the world. That is another challenge—that the young people will understand that it is a great privilege to go on a mission and that they must be physically well, mentally well, spiritually well, and that ‘the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.
“I am asking for missionaries who have been carefully indoctrinated and trained through the family and the organizations of the Church, and who come to the mission with a great desire. (The word indoctrinate as President Kimball was using it means to instruct in fundamentals.) I am asking for better interviews, more searching interviews, more sympathetic and understanding interviews, but especially that we train prospective missionaries much better, much earlier, much longer, so that each anticipates his mission with great joy." [3]
As Elder Bednar and I were married and blessed with three sons, President Kimball’s appeal for well prepared missionaries sparked in us a desire to train our sons for missionary service in the best way that we could. We started early to teach our sons. We read the scriptures as a family and encouraged these sons to read them on their own. In fact, because they were capable of doing so, all of them read the Book of Mormon and memorized the Articles of Faith before they were baptized.
My husband served as a stake president during the time our sons were growing up, and he would often take one of them with him in the car on Sunday to visit a distant branch in our stake. On the way he would ask our sons how they would respond to certain questions an investigator might ask, and then he would assume the role of a very inquisitive, tough investigator.
We both conducted careful interviews with them. My husband’s interviews were a bit more formal, mine a little more casual. Mine occurred as I would cut their hair each month. Having a wiggly, wet-headed son sitting on a chair with a cape around his neck was like holding him captive. I could make the haircuts last as long as I liked. They tended to last longer depending on the conversation we were having.
During this time I was able to visit with each “hostage” and inquire about what was going on in his life, discover what things were troubling him, and assess his feelings about gospel principles. What started out as a financial necessity turned into a spiritual opportunity—a meaningful time to interview and to teach and train and testify to each one of our sons.
Responding to President Kimball’s call for better missionaries was always on our minds. I realized just how much this was on my mind one day when the boys and I had a near-death experience in the car on the way home from school.
I had picked up our older boys from their elementary school driving a car that had a stick shift. Why I was driving that particular car that day, I do not know, because I was a terrible driver with a stick shift.
We were traveling on the bypass that went around Lubbock, Texas, going about 65 miles an hour when a school bus, going about 40 miles per hour, pulled in front of me. Sandwiched in by cars on all sides, I immediately tried to hit the brake, but there was no response. I do not know where my foot landed, but it was not on the brake. Right at the time I thought we were going to collide into the back of the school bus, I put a hand in front of my face and pled, “Heavenly Father, please don’t let us crash. These little boys need to grow up to be missionaries.”
With divine assistance my foot found the brake, and those little boys did grow up to be missionaries. And they were faithful missionaries who were well prepared, carefully “indoctrinated,” and trained through the family and the organizations of the Church because of meaningful instruction from a prophet of God, President Kimball.
As I have been sharing my own experiences, what counsel from prophets have you mothers remembered? What teachings from President Hinckley have you students recalled that will help you to abound in good works?
Will you remember the six “B’s” he taught?
Be grateful.
Be smart.
Be clean.
Be true.
Be humble.
Be prayerful.
Will you remember the prayer President Hinckley offered for you after he gave this advice? I was seated here in the Hart Auditorium with BYU–Idaho Students when he prayed for you. What a powerful spirit permeated the room as he petitioned our Heavenly Father,
"Please help them to walk in paths of truth and righteousness and keep them from the evils of the world. Bless them that they shall be happy at times and serious at times, that they may enjoy life and drink of its fulness. Bless them that they may walk acceptably before Thee as Thy cherished sons and daughters. Each is Thy child with capacity to do great and noble things." [4]
I know we will all remember President Hinckley’s recent invitation to read the Book of Mormon. What did we learn from that experience? What blessings and insights came because we were willing to follow the counsel of a prophet of God? What prophetic teachings from President Hinckley have had a deep impact on your life? Please share these teachings with your children as they come.
May our faith to follow the counsel of living prophets assist us to always abound in good works.
Hope received through temple covenants
Let us talk for just a few minutes about hope. We know that faith in Jesus Christ leads to hope in His Atonement. In Moroni chapter 7, verse 41 in the Book of Mormon, we read: “And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.” [5]
Teachings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ about the plan of happiness give us hope for eternal life. It is an eternal truth that through the Atonement of Jesus Christ we are resurrected and will live forever with Him and our Heavenly Father. We also know that through the ordinances of the temple we can be sealed to those we love for time and all eternity. These eternal hopes and aspirations create in us a desire to live so that the promised blessings of the temple can be efficacious through our faithful obedience. In other words, hope received through temple covenants gives us strength to always abound in good works.
As I was sitting here, I could not help but remember what I was doing 31 years ago today on March 19 at 5:30 p.m., this very moment! I was seated next to my mother in the Provo temple, receiving my endowment in preparation for my marriage to Elder Bednar the next morning in the Salt Lake Temple.
Tomorrow is our anniversary, and I remember the feelings of love I felt for him as we knelt at the altar and entered into the covenant of eternal marriage. My mind has gone back many times to the wonderful love and the peace that I felt at that moment—not only to reminisce or reflect, but to remember those feelings of love when we have had a misunderstanding or a disagreement, or when I have felt a distance between us that needed to be narrowed. Returning in my heart and mind to that sacred time and place has always filled me with a renewal of love and a sense of hope coupled with a desire to do and to be better. This exercise was particularly meaningful for the twenty years we lived so far away from a temple.
I cannot tell you how grateful I was to be so close to the Idaho Falls Temple when we moved to Rexburg. During one of my visits to the temple, I noticed several women whom I knew in attendance there. I was aware that each one had a care or concern that required divine help and strength. One sister was pondering how she could best assist a wayward son. Another was praying for courage to leave her home and family as her husband accepted an assignment to be a mission president. Still another was dealing with the loneliness of being single. Another was seeking guidance on how to deal with her physically and mentally challenged child. I am certain each sister left the temple that day with renewed hope and strength to meet the challenges facing her.
How wonderful that we can go to the temple to do vicarious work for someone else and come away receiving more than we could ever give. In the strength of the Lord we can do all things. Temple attendance brings renewed hope and increased strength to always abound in good works.
I am so excited that a temple is being constructed right here on this very campus. Let me share an experience that I think demonstrated the readiness of BYU–Idaho students to have a temple.
On April 6, 2000, Elder Bednar and I gathered together with students in the Taylor Chapel for the satellite broadcast of the dedication of the Palmyra Temple. The early morning temple dedication required students to be in their seats by 6:30 a.m. We arrived a few minutes after 6:00 a.m. and found the whole chapel and overflow filled with students. I was told that some people had arrived at 4:00 a.m. I was glad my husband and I had a reserved seat!
The demeanor and reverence of the students was impressive. But what impressed me most that day was the unusual response to what happened when we lost the satellite feed right as President Hinckley was ready to make his remarks before offering the dedicatory prayer.
The students sat in total silence for almost an hour waiting for the audiovisual capabilities to be restored which, by the way, never were. Their sense of solemn regard for this special, historic occasion amazed me. Those in attendance had come seeking the spirit, and they left feeling it despite the technical difficulties and disappointment of not participating in the entire dedicatory session. More importantly, these students showed by their spiritual maturity that they and others like them are ready and worthy of the magnificent blessing of having a temple on this campus.
To think that you students will have a celestial place where you can slip away from the pressures of your studies, where you can sort out the complexities of your lives, and where you can pray to feel a sense of peace and assurance about the decisions you are making right now warms my heart.
Each of you can serve in this sacred, vicarious work whether in the baptistry, or in an initiatory, endowment, or sealing session. This holy edifice will be a “Light on a Hill” whose light will shine in you as you participate in this holy work. You will go forth from this house armed with the Savior’s power. His name will be upon you, His glory round about you, and His angels will have charge over you. [6]
Think of the blessings that can come to you individually and collectively as a student body if you invite the temple to be a symbol of your membership in the Church. I hope this temple will be the most highly used temple in the Church. It should be! Because of hope received through our temple covenants, we gain strength to continue in good works.
Charity towards all
We have talked about faith and hope. Now let us discuss how charity towards all moves us to do good works. In Alma chapter 13 we read:
"And now, my brethren, I wish from the inmost part of my heart, yea, with great anxiety even unto pain, that ye would hearken unto my words, and cast off your sins, and not procrastinate the day of your repentance;
"But that ye would humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear, and thus be led by the Holy Spirit, becoming humble, meek, submissive, patient, full of love and all long-suffering;
"Having faith on the Lord; having a hope that ye shall receive eternal life; having the love of God always in your hearts, that ye may be lifted up at the last day and enter into his rest." [7]
We know from the scriptures that this love of God is charity, a spiritual gift.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie said:
"Above all the attributes of godliness and perfection, charity is the one most devoutly to be desired. Charity is more than love, far more; it is everlasting love, perfect love, the pure love of Christ which endureth forever. It is love so centered in righteousness that the possessor has no aim or desire except for the eternal welfare of his own soul and for the souls of those around him." [8]
Many years ago I read a New Era article by Sister Barbara B. Smith, former President of the General Relief Society. She described an amazing encounter she had with President Harold B. Lee, who possessed this pure and perfect love. Sister Smith states:
"One evening as I conversed with President Harold B. Lee, I said to him, ‘President Lee, you seem different someway tonight.’ He smiled and said, ‘You know what it is, don’t you?’ I shook my head and said I really didn’t know what it was. Then he shared with me his remarkable experience saying:
"After I became the President of the Church, I thought a great deal about what the Lord wanted me to do. One night, while I was sleeping, President McKay came to me in a dream. He pointed his finger and looked at me with those piercing eyes of his as only President McKay could do, and he said, ‘If you would serve the Lord, you must love and serve his children.’ I awakened with a compelling desire to learn all I could about love that I might serve the Lord.
"He said, ‘After I had read everything the scriptures had to say about love, I began to put into practice all that I had gleaned from my study. That’s what you can feel. It is my newfound ability to truly love and serve his children.’
"I watched President Lee even a little more closely that night and noted that not one person who came to the table to shake his hand left without receiving a special word of encouragement or an extra question that indicated the concern of the prophet. No one went away without seeing his smile or hearing his words of love." [9]
A year or two after President Hinckley was called to be the Prophet, we had a member of the Seventy and his wife visit our home here in Rexburg. We asked this couple a question: “What have you observed about President Hinckley since the mantle of prophet has fallen on his shoulders?” They both agreed—his increased capacity to love. We have all felt President Hinckley’s love, haven’t we?
May I suggest that the ability to possess this love or charity towards all is not just reserved for prophets. The visiting teaching message in July 1999 states: “Charitable hearts do remarkable works, and nothing will bring joy into our lives more completely than nurturing and acting upon the Christlike feelings that prompt us to do good.” [10]
Charity, the pure love of Christ, is a gift we must seek after through study, prayer, obedience, and sacrifice. We must pray this heartfelt prayer everyday, “Lord, please make me an instrument in thy hands.”
President Spencer W. Kimball once said: “God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we serve each other.” [11] Brothers and sisters, we must seek to be angels of charity and mercy for our Savior as we minister to each other through our works of righteousness.
In conclusion, I would like to share with you a conversation I had on the phone many years ago with a stranger, not of our faith. I am not sure why this woman called me, but she expressed concern about our belief and teachings that works are important to our salvation. She said she could not believe that we would preach anything other than salvation by grace. As we visited together, she alleged that for me to think my good works did anything for my salvation diminished the gift that Christ had given us through His grace and showed that I was ungrateful for the gift—because it was just that, a gift. Christ expected nothing in return.
I informed her that our Church teaches that salvation comes only through the Atonement of Christ. Anything I did in the way of good works was not going to save me. It was Christ’s atoning blood that saves. But I told her that after I exhibited faith in Christ, repented, was baptized, and then received the gift of the Holy Ghost, I had a desire to love Him, to serve Him, and to glorify and honor His name by doing good. Our works are an outcome of following His directive to be “doers of the word, and not hearers only.” We demonstrate our love for Him by keeping His commandments, and we show our faith by our works.
The woman then said it was wrong for me to feel I had to do anything in the way of good works. Our conversation ended. I am not sure I understood her very well, and I know she did not understand me.
As I pondered our conversation, I came to the conclusion that many times we, as Latter-day Saints, do not teach or emphasize or articulate very well the primary role the Savior plays in our salvation. We are so intent on trying to prove ourselves by our good works that we forget to rely wholly upon the merits of Him who is mighty to save. [12] We talk of works, yet we fail to talk of Christ, to rejoice in Christ, or to preach of Christ. [13] We get discouraged and burned out thinking that we can never do enough to repay him. And the reality is we cannot repay him. His loving and merciful gift to save is perfect grace; it is infinite grace; it is eternal grace that only our Savior and Redeemer can provide.
But His grace is unique in that it not only redeems us from sin and saves us from everlasting death, it also provides strength and assistance to do good works that we otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to our own means. [14] His grace enables us, magnifies us, and strengthens us as we seek to honor Him who created us and redeemed us. Understanding the dual nature of this grace engenders our faith in the Savior; it gives us hope in His atoning sacrifice; it fills us with charity, His perfect love; and ultimately it blesses us with strength to do good works.
My dear brothers and sisters, I testify that Jesus is the Christ. He reveals His will to living apostles and prophets. I have come to know this truth in an even more personal way the past 18 months—that whether by His own voice or the voice of His servants, it is the same. Therefore, faith to follow the teachings of living prophets helps us to abound in good works.
I testify that temple attendance brings blessings of peace, personal assurance, and spiritual power in a world that grows increasingly dark. Receiving temple covenants gives us hope for eternal blessings and through that hope we obtain strength right now to cope with trials and challenges.
I bear witness that charity towards all is the pure love of Christ. May we pray with all the energy of our hearts for this marvelous gift—to feel our Savior’s pure and perfect love and then share that love with others.
May we someday hear these precious words from a loving Savior: “Come unto me ye blessed, for behold, your works have been the works of righteousness upon the face of the earth.” [15] In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
[1] Ensign, Nov. 1995, 102
[2] Alma 7:24; emphasis added
[3] Spencer W. Kimball, “When the World Will Be Converted,” Ensign, October 1974, 7
[4] A Prophet’s Counsel and Prayer for Youth, Ensign, Jan. 2001, 2
[5] Moroni 7:41
[6] Doctrine and Covenants 109:22
[7] Alma 13:27-29
[8] McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 121
[9] Barbara B. Smith, “Love is Life,” New Era, Feb. 1986, 44
[10] “Clothed in Charity,” Ensign, July 1999, 55
[11] Ensign, Oct. 1985
[12] 2 Nephi 31:19
[13] 2 Nephi 25:26
[14] Bible Dictionary, Grace, 697
[15] Alma 5:16